The gym is a great way to stay fit but it isn’t for everyone, myself included. So I always welcome a fun and unique alternative to the gym that will give me a good workout but also keep me entertained. I found that when I started bouldering, an activity that has taken off in popularity in recent years. Bouldering is a type of rock climbing in which you are not attached to a harness, so you are free-climbing the wall that is between 10 and 15 feet high.
I first took up bouldering around two years ago. It was a God-send when I was working from home full time because unlike the gym, the bouldering centre was a social place where people welcome conversation and help each other with their climbs. This, to me, was going to be the way to get a good workout without it feeling too much like a chore. It’s a tale as old as time, that a habit you enjoy is a habit you are going to keep.
I am not alone in this fitness revelation. Bouldering is one of the activities that a huge number of people across the UK have discovered and started to take enjoyment in. According to Climbing Business Journal, there are more than 380 public access climbing walls in the UK and over 5 million indovidual visits every year.
I would love to say this is an original discovery that I had made, a real underground scene that not many people are aware of. But alas, it is a trend I was jumping on. But trends aren’t always just trends. They can become communities and even whole industries.
Anyway, back to the experience of climbing itself. Most climbing gyms will have a colour-coded system with a number of different holds on a wall. The holds that are the same color all belong to the same climb, and the color represents the level of difficulty.
My first bouldering session was an interesting one, with most of my time spent getting over the initial hesitatiopn of letting myself ascend more than 10 feet off the ground. However, with a few of the easy climbs out of the way, I started to gain confidence in my coordination.
Gradually, over the next few sessions, I began moving up the colour grades and the more difficult the climbs were, the better the workout was. That was made evident by how my legs, arms and back felt over the days following my climbs. I was working out muscles I didn’t even know existed, it seemed.
But what was the difference over time, you ask? Well, when I was bouldering two to three times per week, my body was the most toned it had ever been. While the physical effetcs of these workouts were more than welcome, there were other things that stood out.
The activity of bouldering, although it involves physical strength, incorporates a lot of problem-solving skills. You have to work out where you need to put your hands and feet, how to start a climb, and how to best complete the route.
This, compared to the motononous task of lifting weights in the gym, was the thing I needed to keep me engaged. To me, the practice of repeatedly lifting weights up and down in the gym is, to be honest, boring.
But I found a workout that required me to use my brain, and oftentimes, chat to others about how best to go about my chosen climbing route.
Now, the cost. Memberships, usually costing around £60 to £70 per month, are worth it if you are going to visit your local climbing wall regularly. But a one-ff visit without a membership, if you need to rent the climbing shoes, can cost you upwards of £17.
But if you are looking for a way to get into fitness but the idea of going to a standard gym fills you with dread, then you might be like me and bouldering might be the form of exercise that sticks.
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